Distributed leadership: taking a retrospective and contemporary view of the evidence base

Distributed leadership is one of the most influential and well-discussed ideas to emerge in the field of educational leadership. Prompted by the foundational and seminal work of Spillane et al. (2001) the idea of shared or ‘stretched’ leadership that incorporates both formal and informal leaders, has been of interest to researchers, policy-makers practitioners and educational reformers around the globe. Distributed leadership has captured the attention of many international researchers and as this article will show, has been the focus of a great deal of empirical enquiry. This article looks at the two decades of research that followed the pivotal Spillane et al. (2001) article on distributed leadership. Firstly, it takes a retrospective view by drawing upon selected literature from 2001 to 2011 mapping out the main findings based on this empirical terrain. Secondly, it offers a contemporary view by exploring recently selected literature on distributed leadership from 2011 to 2021. The article does not claim to be a systematic review of the literature but rather, offers some insights into selected evidence over two decades. The article considers how far distributed leadership remains a relevant concept for those working within the field of educational leadership.